XT/AlienBees Problems

[hawkfeather]

I got my B400 AlienBees unit today. When I hooked it up at the studio, it would not synch properly off of my XTs flash as a slave. I called AlienBees and the technician said to turn the camera to manual and turn off redeye. I did and it still would not flash at the same time. Any help would be greatly appreciated???

[Titus213]

The Bees will not sync properly because of the pre-flash on your cameran (the E part of ETTL). The Bees detect the pre-flash as the main flash and off they go. You can do it with a manual flash but I don't think you can put the on-board flash into manual mode. Best bet is to get a hot-shoe PC adapter for about $10 and wire the camera to the Bees.

[SkipD]

You will never get the AB's to sync properly from the built-in flash. You cannot put that flash into manual mode and eliminate the pre-flash that's used to calculate exposure. Even if you bought the item you'd need to get around that problem, you would then run into some nasty exposure control problems if the on-camera flash is being used.

The best bet - get a hotshoe-to-PC adapter (about $10 to $15 US) and use the cable that came with the AB flash to connect the camera and flash unit. You will also benefit greatly by getting a handheld flash meter, but you can experiment a lot and come up with decent aperture settings for the AB flash.

When using the AB's, set the shutter speed at 1/200 second or slower. Anything faster will give you photos with part of the image black.

Edit - Dave, we were actually writing at the same time. I didn't copy your text.... :p

[hawkfeather]

Thanks for the help... I went ahead and ordered the adapter when I had the AlienBees tech on the line. I figured I would need it but wanted to see if there was any way to use the built in flash too.

[tim]

You might be able to do it by hitting the * button to fire the preflash, waiting until your lights recharge, then taking the shot.

[Titus213]

You might be able to do it by hitting the * button to fire the preflash, waiting until your lights recharge, then taking the shot.

Would that not cause the Bees to be included in the measurement for pre-flash, causing the final shot to be under exposed?

[René Damkot]

Nope, because the built in flash might shut off early, but the bees are main light, and ETTL can't tell them to shut off ;)

[davidfig]

You might be able to do it by hitting the * button to fire the preflash, waiting until your lights recharge, then taking the shot.

Absolutely, positively you can. By pressing the * button it fires the pre-flash. Then wait for the bees to recycle and fire away. I do it all the time. Canon does not give us a way to turn off pre-flash.

[davidfig]

Would that not cause the Bees to be included in the measurement for pre-flash, causing the final shot to be under exposed?
This may very well be true. But isn't that what you want? Also if not then go manual.

[tim]

This may very well be true. But isn't that what you want? Also if not then go manual.

You have to be in manual when using strobes anyway.

[Titus213]

I'm confused...

[SkipD]

I'm confused...About what?

[Titus213]

I've been thinking over the use of the FEL to get the studio slaves to trip. I guess if the camera is in manual mode any measurement taken by the FEL will be ignored by the camera. I was thinking ETTL would set the exposure and the inclusion of the full studio strobe with the reduced-for-measurement ETTL would mess up everything. But manual mode is manual mode. I reckon it is a solution.

[Ken Fong]

I've given up any attempt to trigger the AB from a camera flash thanks to the warnings from this forum. The wired connection is the sure thing. Optical triggering from the wired AB to another AB is also a sure thing assuming your receiver is not blocked, so you'll only need one wire.

[slowassta]

i bought this

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wireless-Multi-Channel-Radio-Slave-Flash-Trigger-New_W0QQitemZ130004376865QQihZ003QQcategoryZ30086Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and it works like a charm with my AB400's and my one 800